In a span of seven seconds, St. John’s’ bid to pull off the Big East upset of the season went from quite possible to impossible predicament.
Two mental mistakes in seven seconds is all it took to give a talented but not overly tough Connecticut team the wedge it needed to pull away from undermanned but tenacious St. John’s team Wednesday night in Gampel Pavilion.
The 66-50 final score was misleading. As Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said after the game, this was a rock fight and though both sides threw stones, David almost felled Goliath.
The frustrated Huskies were clinging to a 47-44 lead with 9:05 left and Connecticut, playing as the nation’s No. 1-ranked team for the first time this season, was showing all the signs of a top-rated team coming undone.
Calhoun had been assessed a technical foul for arguing a call. He would go on to chew out point guard Marcus Williams, who was chewed up all night by Eugene Lawrence.
Forward Rudy Gay, who will be an NBA lottery pick whenever he leaves Storrs, had gotten so frustrated by former St. John’s walk-on Phil Missere, who was cut from his high school varsity, he drew a technical for shoving Missere in the back.
“Good offensive players really don’t like tight defense,” said St. John’s center Aaron Spears.
And then the seven seconds that were St. John’s coach Norm Roberts’ single biggest concern going into the game – that his team would lose focus in such a much-hyped game in such an intense environment against such a big-time opponent – struck.
First Spears, who had battled Hilton Armstrong for every inch of paint, took an elbow in the chops from Connecticut freshman Jeff Adrien (who drew a one-game ban). Spears threw a roundhouse punch at Adrien. Both players were ejected for fighting.
“It was in the heat of the game,” said a contrite Spears. “I know I hurt my team. I didn’t try do it on purpose.”
Seven seconds later, Hamilton, in foul trouble most of the night, got caught in between on defense and fouled out. Seated next to Roberts on the bench were two players averaging a total of 19.7 points and 10.7 rebounds. Add in the absence of Anthony Mason Jr., who was limited to just 16 minutes because of the flu, and suddenly St. John’s went from protagonists to predicament.
Connecticut (17-1 overall, 5-1 in the Big East) went on a 15-4 run to take a 62-48 lead with 4:35 left. All of the toughness and scrappiness St. John’s (10-7, 3-3) exerted to stay with Connecticut were voided by two mental errors in seven seconds.
“I don’t know if I would call it a wedge, but right now we don’t have the depth in our program to lose two players in that span and not have it affect us,” said Roberts. “When we lose Aaron and then Lamont, we’re going to players like Phil [Missere], who works hard but can’t make the plays Aaron makes, and to Tomas [Jasiulionis], who doesn’t have the experience that Lamont has. But we’ll get there.”